The future of extreme e-sports: The gamepad that draws blood every time your character gets hit

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

In a rather chilling case of dystopian sci-fi made real, some Canadians have created a modified Xbox gamepad that draws blood from your arm every time your in-game character takes damage. According to the gamepad’s creators, the idea is to hold “blood donation gaming events” — to bolster blood bank reserves (which are always in short supply), and also to make gamers “think about more important issues while still doing what they love.” While this is ostensibly a rather noble effort, it’s hard not to see this as the first step towards extreme gaming and e-sports where losers actually die in real life.

The system, which is rather scarily called Blood Sport, is fairly simple in its design. Basically, the creators found an old blood collection machine, and then connected its pump to an Xbox 360 gamepad via an Arduino microcontroller. Every time the gamepad rumbles/vibrates, the Arduino tells the machine to draw some blood. The creators say their system should work with any console/gamepad that has the rumble feature, but they’ve only modified a single Xbox controller so far. Apparently the Arduino keeps track of how much blood has been drawn, so that no one dies.

The next step, obviously, as it isn’t much fun to lose blood to an NPC, is to modify another gamepad and acquire another blood collection machine so that you can play against other people. Thus, Blood Sport turned to Kickstarter for funding. At the time of publishing, however, the project had been suspended — with no word from Kickstarter or the project owners as to why. Presumably it’s because Kickstarter simply found the idea a little bit squeamish — though I’m sure the site has crowdfunded lots of other weird projects over the years.

Here’s the promotional video for Blood Sport. It’s not particularly graphic, but if you’re not a fan of blood you may want to skip it.

So, for now, Blood Sport has been put on ice — but, fortunately (unfortunately?) such novel and convoluted ideas don’t just vanish. Now, for better or worse, the world is thinking about combining video games and blood collection. At the very least, such a system could be employed by real clinics to improve the allure of blood collection — speaking for myself, I would be much more inclined to donate blood if it involved fragging some Halo noobs.

Obviously, though, I think we should be much more interested in the potential for extreme and dangerous uses of the technology. There is a very, very fine line between charitable gaming and an e-sports tournament to the death. Imagine if the Arduino bugs out, and keeps drawing blood past the safety threshold. Or imagine an extreme e-sports league, where there is no safety threshold — where dying in Counter-Strike or Dota 2 actually hits you in real life, diminishing your abilities and increasing the likelihood that you’ll lose more and more blood until… well, you get the idea. Amusingly enough, maybe this would encourage gamers to physically exercise more, or to take a leaf out of other competitive sports and start using steroids and blood doping. (Or who knows, maybe e-sports professionals are already doing that?)

The future of e-sports?

I’m starting to get ahead of myself — but I think we can all agree that such a scenario, as worrying as it sounds, doesn’t seem too far beyond the realms of reality. Whether it’s VR, brain implants, bionic retinas, brain-computer interfaces (or even brain-to-brain telepathy), we are clearly moving towards a world where the once-clear divide between humans and their tools is blurred. Today it’s the merging of fun and games and drawing blood — tomorrow, it’s a generation of humans that have had an augmented reality device attached to their head since shortly after birth.

Tagged In

This is doesn’t make much sense for a game like Call of Duty. Every time you fire your gun your controller vibrates, and blood is drawn whether you take damage or not.

http://www.sirgcal.com/ SirGCal

“The future of extreme e-sports: The gamepad the draws blood every time your character gets hit”

Think you have a typo here… I suspect you meant “The gamepad THAT draws blood”… Just FYI.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

Ah, thanks — will fix.

Marble Shark

You pedantic, pathetic fuck.

http://www.sirgcal.com/ SirGCal

But my thoughts, how LONG will it take to donate your pint of blood? Seems like it would take a heck of a lot longer then just the needle and a lie down.

EnigmaV8

Not if you’re REALLY bad at gaming.

VirtualMark

“it’s hard not to see this as the first step towards extreme gaming and e-sports where losers actually die in real life”

Really? Who would want to play a game where they can die? And why would someone build a device that kills people over a game? And how would any of this be legal?

I don’t think we’re in any danger of this happening really.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

You know there are a lot of people who do stuff where there’s a serious risk of dying, right? BASE jumping, boxing, extreme sports, etc.

VirtualMark

But those are things in the real world, whereas computer games are in a virtual world.

If a game could kill you, someone would have needed to build that mechanism. Are we supposed to believe that one day there will be a boxing game, where you get punched in the face by a machine, with enough power to kill you? Or a car racing game, where if you crash, the machine sets itself on fire and burns you alive?

Seems a bit far fetched to me. But I could certainly see a future where games can administer shocks or pain to make the world seem more real. I just think that there will be safety limits on any consumer devices.

You could have a boxing game, where if you get hit, it stimulates your ears to make your balance go, and also affects the vision in the VR headset. That would be enough for most people, and not cause any damage.

Timothy Payne

This gives me a kickstarter idea. Well, off to the basement never to be seen for 16 months.

Bob Dobbs

That’s nonsense… The equivalent would be base jumping, but if you don’t land on the bulls-eye, a contraption smashes you with a rock and kills you.

Risk of death during those activities is inherent to the activity and not some contrived afterthought just to add in a nonsensical risk of death that doesn’t need to be there, and isn’t there in the first place.

h4rm0ny

I don’t think people do those things because they might die. Not normally.

http://www.mrseb.co.uk/ Sebastian Anthony

To everyone below me: Yep, true. I don’t think people would play a game where they might actually die. At least, not in today’s rather safe society. But I think if you went as far as passing out, but not actually dying… people might be interested? Who knows.

(Don’t forget, blood sports were very common in the olden days — watching slaves/gladiators fight to the death was just your run-of-the-mill weekend entertainment.)

don681

I’m with VirtualMark. That killing device would actually have to be DESIGNED. It won’t pop out randomly or evolve by itself from the invention mentioned in the article.

I think that’s just thinking too far ahead like a kid. It’s a blurb to make the article more interesting, nothing more. It’s in the same realm as zombie apocalypse and giant spiders.

People that actually want to kill themselves already have better ways to do it.

dc

I see it more as something to do in the 3d world. Round up some desperate people and have them fight to the death, with their deaths broadcasted on pay per view.

VirtualMark

Yeah I’ve always wished they’d put serial killers into an arena and let them fight to the death lol. I’d pay to watch that shit!

Timothy Payne

We should have a gladiatorial prison system (Murderers, rapers, etc. Not thieves or the like, just abuse to humanity).

Timothy Payne

Perfect Dark Zero, Datadyne. Those fucks.

MisterBlat

“If you’d like to be a contestant on THE RUNNING MAN, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to: ICS Talent Hunt, care of your local affiliate, and then go out and do something really despicable!”

MadisonHJ

You know, there is alot of people out of work. I’m sure some of the unemployed would love to prick this guy with a needle every time his character gets hit.

BtotheT

Derp.

bob lebart

The Year 2075: Under permit of the U.S. Judicial System, and in accordance with guidelines set by U.S. Penal Codes,

Valve introduces: “LETHAL INJECTION”

Joe LoGuidice

As someone that works in eSports, this will never be mainstream. Fans want to see the highest level of play, not someone struggling to control their forces due to blood loss. That being said the whole concept gave me the shivers.

h4rm0ny

>>“it’s hard not to see this as the first step towards extreme gaming and e-sports where losers actually die in real life”

I don’t find that hard.

XenoSilvano

lol, I can imagine gamers throughout the world passed-out in their living-rooms due to playing too much COD and being hooked up to this.

Timothy Payne

HA! Little 9-year old screecher shits got what was coming to them with their shitty skills and shitty mics!

XenoSilvano

lol, ah that is cruel.

Zunalter

Seems like a lot of work for something that doesn’t really add anything to the experience.

ptmmac

The really interesting tech is the convergence between the capabilities of living tissues and nanotech machinery. The boundary between living and non-living is breaking down. At some point it will be hard to determine where the person ends and the artifacts start.

Oh look a new way to spread bodily fluids and diseases. “Let me play man” “NO YOU HAVE AIDS”. Brings a whole new meaning to trolling.

Timothy Payne

Just don’t have to BloodSport hooked up.

Miserable Clown

Would it not make more sense to draw blood from the winner?
Otherwise it is like the old saying “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer”

That would be exciting to watch. Who are fit enough to continually win?

Other than that I’ve heard talk about attaching electrodes to parts of your body including genitals, nipples, lung and heart area and head.
I can understand it could be satisfying to see your opponent twitch in pain on the sofa.

I know! Lets combine the two!

You get bonus for letting the blood machine draw more blood, decrease the safety threshold and let more volts through the electrodes.

If they started that than I might actually want to watch e-sports.

Timothy Payne

No. DIVIDE THE RICH AND THE POOR! My dream is to live in a trailer park in the most expensive trailer of all time with a perfect view of all the lesser peoples. And a grill. Definitely a grill.

Marble Shark

Obviously a joke.

https://www.facebook.com/Ci.Devant.XVIII Ci Devant

What could possibly go wrong?

This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. Terms of use.

ExtremeTech Newsletter

Subscribe Today to get the latest ExtremeTech news delivered right to your inbox.